New VDI recipe: Pinch of Cisco, spoon of VMware, mix with X-IO arrays

Add salt as required

X-IO, maker of the sealed ISE and HyperISE storage enclosures, has come up with a reference architecture for VDI using Cisco and VMware kit.

The X-Pod for VDI template uses Cisco's UCS servers and networking hardware, VMware's Horizon View, and X-IO's own flash-disk ISE 740s. This validated design should support up to 1,500 desktop users at 97 per cent concurrency. Login VSI benchmarking has been used to verify the performance level.

This paddle in the X-Pod pool follows on from X-IO's VDI Emergency Response initiative announced in July. This proposed inserting X-IO storage boxes into failing VDI implementations to provide the storage performance they needed.

X-IO also has a Citrix VDI architecture.

The X-Pod follows the converged systems punted by VCE – the Vblocks built from Cisco UCS servers and networking, EMC storage, and VMware software. NetApp and Cisco produced the FlexPod reference architecture for channel partners hoping to build and sell whole systems rather than the separate components.